


To See The World Anew

by astral_plant



Series: A Series of Hypothetical Events [2]
Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post S1 Canon Divergence, Angst and Humor, Enemies to Friends, F/F, Fear of Water & Drowning, Happy Ending, Slow Burn Romance, The Beginnings Of A Crush
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2019-08-01 11:01:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16283375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astral_plant/pseuds/astral_plant
Summary: “No, this isn't the part where I kill you,” says the elf with a tinge of exasperation. "No, this isn't the part where I get you to let down your guard only to betray you later either.”In the aftermath of a chaotic battle, a bewildered and injured Claudia is nursed back to health by Rayla. The adventure that ensues? Entirely incidental.





	1. Chapter 1

Claudia wakes to a throbbing head and an itching side.

“W-what?” Claudia rasps, interrupting herself with another groan. She makes to sit up, in the process, jostling the cloak that had been draped about her body. “How… Where?”

“Don’t try to move too much for now,” says the bloodthirsty, elven assassin from across the crackling campfire. “That includes pawing at the bandages, you tit.”

The elf’s lilting voice sounds almost reproachful. It feels weird. Very weird. What's even weirder is how the world seems to tilt about its axis the second that Claudia tries to get up. She gives up after a few attempts. It’s no use. Her whole body feels like a ten ton slab of meat, and this is after she’s thrown off the makeshift blanket.

Instead of trying to get up, Claudia makes do with clutching her head as she tries to get her bearings in order. There’s gauze wrapped around her stomach, and her temple too, she realises. As far as she can tell… they’re in a cave of some sort. _The ceiling sure looks craggy_ , Claudia thinks as she squints up at it. Honestly though, the craggy, echoing walls of the cave is the least prominent feature of her current surroundings.

It’s pretty hard to ignore the elephant in the room. It feels especially the case when the elephant in question seems so engrossed with sharpening her curved daggers. It shouldn’t be an issue at all. Weapon maintenance is an important and applaudable habit, except that… _except_ ….!

Claudia doesn't register how long she’d been staring. When the elf finally levels her with a deadpanned stare, Claudia can't help but let her fears slip out.

“Is—”Claudia croaks, her voice fraying at the edges. She takes a gulp before repeating herself—”Is this the part where you kill me?”

The elven assassin rolls her eyes. Claudia expects many things: threats of violence maybe, or even maniacal, villain-like cackling, but certainly not… not that.

“No, this isn't the part where I kill you,” says the elf with a tinge of exasperation. Despite this, she carries on, sharpening her blade with a small, pocket-sized whetstone. It’s certainly a fine blade. The way its arc reflects the light of the fire, Claudia can almost imagine it slicing through the air and into—

At those words, Claudia scrunches her face up and lets out a shudder. She gives her (captor? saviour? archenemy?) a look that's equal parts pleading as it is pitiful. It earns Claudia another eye roll from the girl.

“No,” the elf continues as she side-eyes Claudia. “This isn't the part where I get you to let down your guard only to betray you later either.”

“Well, that’s a relief. Wait… really?” Claudia asks again, still a little dubious.

In a nimble flurry of motion, the elf sheathes her blades.

“I swear it,” says the elf as she brings her fingers together, making the sign of taking an oath for Claudia to see.

_ Well… alright then, _Claudia thinks.  It feels almost odd to see, because though they spoke a common tongue, she hadn’t really thought of elves as the type who took oaths.  But… well, four fingers or not, an oath’s an oath, and that’s good enough for her.  _It’s a fascinating variation in our physiology though_ ,  Claudia thinks. The books had always focused on their differences, like how elves had horns and markings, like runes on their skin. The books had always focused on their differences, but... Right. She’s going off track...  _Where are…. Where is Soren? Is he alright? What happened to Callum and Ezran and… the dragon egg? Gosh, it hatched, didn’t it?_ Claudia thinks with a frown. She stares intently at the crackling fire as if it can answer her. It can. Probably, with the right spell and the right ingredients on hand. She’ll get right round to that. It looks like her bag’s just on the other side of the campfire, next to the grouchy, brooding elf.

_Ugh_ … the room’s spinning again though, even when she’s only trying to crawl over. Claudia slumps forward, her long hair falling over her face and into her mouth. _Pfft_ is the sound she makes when she tries to blow hair away from her face.

She’s barely moved an inch. God, she feels like the saddest worm in the world. And that's really saying something. As a practitioner of dark magic, she’s seen some really sad worms in her time.

…At times like these, she should really think of the bright side. She’s managed to escape with her life from a harrowing fall. There’s one. She’s probably not paralysed by an elven nerve agent or some slow-acting, Xadian poison, dissolving her slowly from the inside out. That’s another one. She can’t stand up straight right now to save her life, but she can wiggle her toes, at least. Isn’t that great? Life’s just great.

Just who is she kidding? Certainly not herself. _Breathe, Claudia,_ she thinks to herself. _Breathe, and calm down and think._

She lets out a haggard breath after rolling onto her back, then stares blankly up at the ceiling.

If Claudia concentrates hard enough, she can recall little snippets of what happened: the fight that broke out between their two parties and the great fall down the side of the mountain that ensued. How could a rescue mission go so wrong? They were supposed to be the good guys, weren’t they?

…A part of her wants to cry, but if she wasn't going to die, right here and now, then she really needs to be on her way. She needs to talk some sense to her brother, at the very least. She needs to… think about what to do about the dragon, and the princes, and her father’s less than scrupulous plans for their kingdom.

_Accidents happen all the time,_ Soren had said once in passing. An accident. Was that how he saw it when he raised his sword? An accident? A misstep? No. She could see it in the rigid set of his stance, plain as day, like a viper poised to strike.

Will history label her a patriot for her actions, or a traitor? It would probably depend on who was writing the book, she decided. Well, history can call her whatever it wants, she just can’t be the kind of person who stands by while her friends get hurt or killed in front of her.

She wonders what would have happened if she had perished on that day. Would her family grieve her death? Soren would probably be scarred for life. She’s not sure about her father…

They stacked up, didn’t they? All the repercussions of his practicality. The prisoners taken and tortured. The truths he omitted to tell and the lies he committed to telling… All his choices added up to form a picture of a man she used to be proud to call her father. All his choices added up to form a whole, and all her own will, too. In so many different ways, she was also culpable. At the vert least: guilty by association. More likely, she was complicit.

God, her head hurts from thinking. With a sobering breath, Claudia turns her gaze away from the rocky ceiling.

Across the campfire, the elf’s drawn her legs up to her chest. Huddled as she is about the warmth of the flame, she looks preoccupied in her thoughts as well. Her posture casts her in a strange light. She looks smaller than she is. Younger too, but haunted all the same, if the glassy sheen of her lilac eyes is any indication. Like a wisp of a thought, it occurs to her briefly, that they might not be so different. It occurs to her briefly, and vanishes in a blink.

Claudia can’t even begin to fathom what’s going through her mind. Right now, all that matters is how murder probably isn’t at the forefront of her muddled thoughts.

Claudia blinks, slowly and strenuously. By the gods, she’s just so tired. _Just a bit,_ she thinks, I _just need a moment to rest and think, and then all these broken fragments will fall into place._

_…And maybe then the world will make sense again._

She doesn’t notice how long she spends staring at the swaying, flickering flame, or how out of it she really is. Eventually, she’s lulled into the cloying darkness of sleep, and into a memory from long ago.

* * *

They’re having a lesson. Her and her father. He’s teaching her how to prepare a salve. A magical salve to treat a non-magical injury. Herbalism was never his forte, but a mage is only as good as he pushes himself to learn, she remembers him telling her once before.

After what happened… Claudia supposes that this is his way of being there for her. He had scrawled down a set of instructions, coupled with ingredients to fetch, and fetch them she has. Dutifully and fastidiously, with only a few hiccups along the way.

(Yes, that stone bench did catch her by surprise. Has it always been there? She swears that their courtyard is enchanted and that the layout changes each time they sleep.)

The mandrake, she’d dug out from the castle’s lush, expansive garden. The gooseberries, she’d plucked from the spindly branches of a great old tree in the courtyard. The wasp thorax and beeswax, she’d fetched from her father’s personal stores.

“You’ve gathered fine specimens,” says her father when she’s placed the ingredients on the work table. His reagents seem innumerable: beakers and petri dishes filled with all manner of strange, colourful substances, like bottled lightning and jars of pickled sharks and live hornets.

It’s fascinating. Everything is fascinating. Claudia feels a little bad for her brother, convinced he’s drawn the short end of the stick, made to shoulder his armour in the sweltering midday heat as he waves around his wooden sword. Standing on tiptoes, in wide-eyed awe, she confesses this all to her father as he’s grinding the berries and beeswax with a mortar and pestle into a smooth, red paste.

He laughs and smiles kindly down at her. He has a nice smile, she thinks, for someone whose default expression has always looked so dour.

“I would not call it better or worse, just different. We might be shaped by the gifts we have been given, but in the end, we are all tools of the king. And there is no greater honour than to serve him. For when we do, we—”

“—serve all the people in our kingdom,” finishes Claudia in a lilting, singsong voice.

He blinks, then smiles. “Someone’s been paying attention. Time then, to move on to other lessons.” Readying the chopping board and knife, he instructs her to set about mincing up the odd-looking root. She sets about her task with unmasked, childish glee, ignores how the mandrake looks like it is grimacing at her.

“Much in the same way that soldiers have their pick of weapons, so too, do we mages. Your brother favours the sword. I think it suits his character quite well. Even your Mother… well, she…” he trails off, then draws a sharp intake of breath.

She can sense the pain in his voice. When Claudia turns to look up at him though, all she sees is the cold stone of his expression and the eerie, glass sheen of his eyes, like when the lakes freeze over in winter.

Tugging at his sleeves with small, chubby hands, she manages to pull him out of his reverie. He clears his throat then, before soldiering on.

“Where were we? Oh yes, the thorax,” he says. With a knife, he begins peeling back the hard exoskeleton like the thick skin of a fruit, starting from its underside. He sounds different. More… commanding. Less like her father and more like the High Mage of Katolis.

“But if we’re defined by the gifts given to us—” he says evenly as he places the remains of the insect thorax on the chopping board for Claudia to dice as well—”we occupy an interesting position as users of magic.”

“Why?” Claudia asks, loudly and guilelessly as she sets about fulfilling her task to a T.

“For one, magic is a lot more versatile than conventional weaponry, but also a lot more complicated. Remember when you singed off your eyebrows?” he says, voice mildly chiding.

Claudia harrumphs an affirmation. They've since grown back, but Claudia cannot help but reach for them, just to make sure.

“Magic isn't just about raw power, it’s also about finesse and creativity,” he says as he sweeps the diced ingredients into the mortar, then motions for her to grind them with the paste already therein. “Depending on the intensity of the heat, sun magic can incubate an egg, or raze an entire city to the ground.”

“Mm… I don’t think I want to be a Sun Mage,“ Claudia says as she wrinkles her nose.

“That’s fine. There are many different magical disciplines. Do not worry about choosing a specialisation for now. Learning magic is a very personal journey. The important thing to master first are the basics.”

“Hmm… What kind of mage are you, Dad?” Claudia asks, with both hands still on the pestle. Slowly, but surely, she can see the ingredients gelling into a pale, pink paste. It’s almost done! She can feel it.

“I’m a Dark Mage, but before that, you could say that I was a jack-of-all-trades.”

“Why'd you pick it in the end?”

“Well, sometimes, we’re shaped by the things taken from us,” he answers stiffly. “But that's a topic for another discussion. The salve is coming along nicely. It’s just about done now.”

Before long, he proceeds to scoop the mixture into an ornate looking, pocket-sized metal container.

“Do you remember the incantation?” he asks as he holds the box up to her.

She gives a curt nod before uttering the words. She beams up at him in the aftermath, and he mirrors it with a temperate smile of his own.

“Do you remember how it’s to be administered?”

“Externally, on the wound itself, then bandaged up,” she recites unerringly, from memory.

“Excellent,” he says, before placing the little box into her hands. “Run along now, I have other matters to see to.”

“You’re not going to keep it in the medicine cabinet?” Claudia blinks down quizzically at the item in her hands, then up at him.

“You need it far more urgently than a dusty shelf,” he says matter-of-factly. “Let’s just say that a little birdie told me about your little bird.”

“Is it named Soren?” Claudia asks with a pout, already planning a revenge-prank on him for spilling the beans.

“If you must know, what clued me in was your chirping nightcap,” he says as he crosses his arms behind him.

He doesn't sound angry. He doesn't sound angry, but for some reason, Claudia would rather look down at his feet than up at his face.

Maybe he can sense some unease in her, because soon, he bends down to meet her at eye level instead. “What's the matter, Claudia?”

“Are you mad at me for hiding her from you?” Claudia asks again as she fiddles with the box in her hands. Her voice is a little more tremulous this time, her expression a little more cowed.

“No,” he harrumphs. “I meant it when I said that I won't allow pets. Undue sentimentality will be your undoing,” he asserts. “But come now, your father is not an unreasonable man. I see no harm in helping a visitor winter a trying time.”

“Do you think she will make it?” She asks quietly as she thinks of the little blue sparrow with the wounded wing.

“I don't know for sure. The truth is, even with magic, we can't bend the world to our will. We can only do our best to nudge it in the right direction,” he says. “The salve will help, at the very least. The rest is up to her.”

Claudia nods numbly, a frown tugging down her mouth. She doesn't know what to say to him in times like these. Sometimes, she feels like the right answer is to remain totally silent, and stiff, like a statue.

“Claudia,” at the sound of her name though, Claudia can't help but look up at him. His mask cracks just a bit, but it’s enough to reveal her father again. It’s her Dad, the pancake fan, the man who once upon a time, didn't mind playing the role of the evil dragon who got vanquished by the brave knight and intrepid sorceress. “You have a good heart. Don’t let it be your undoing.”

”Behind these castle walls, you think to show mercy. Beyond these walls, circumstance might not permit you to be so kind. If there’s one thing you learn today, let it be this: The greatest folly of magic is hubris,” he says with a stern hand on her shoulder. “Power is one thing, but good judgement and some creativity are what a mage truly needs in spades.”

She blinks and the moment’s over. He’s back to being the High Mage of Katolis, he’s already walking away from her.

“Remind me to teach you one day, about chess,” he says without sparing a glance behind him. “I think you will enjoy it.” 

* * *

This time, Claudia wakes with a loud, lip smacking yawn. She stretches her arms and hears the joints pop in their sockets. _Ugh_ , her back is a landscape of knots. It’s like she slept without her bedroll on a rocky floor or something. Wait a minute—her memories catch up to her wakefulness—that's exactly what happened.

She palms her side, then her head. They’re still bandaged up. That meant the fight wasn't a dream. She looks about the cave, and true enough, the elven girl wasn't part of a dream either.

“You’d make a lousy assassin,” says the elf with a roll of her eyes as she eyes Claudia’s bed head. “Barely awake and already rowdy as a bull.”

It’s been two times now that they've clashed, and Claudia’s managed to walk away with her life. So…! Maybe miss _so-called_ assassin shouldn't be the one to judge. Claudia opens her mouth to retort in kind, but what slips out instead is an indignant, rasping croak.

“Gosh, you sound like a frog,” says the elf almost chidingly. Quick as an arrow through the air, she’s up and at Claudia’s side. Before Claudia can blink twice, she’s already helping her sit up. “Here, have some of this.” Claudia hears her uncork something, feels the cold glass rim against her mouth, before tasting the drink.

It’s sweet, sugary, and a little tart: a great balm for her parched throat. She swallows greedily, the ire seeping from her to the pace of her slowly-sated thirst. So… alright, maybe the elf does have a point. Maybe being quiet and sneaky wasn't exactly Claudia’s forte.

She licks her lips to get at the beads of liquid at the corner of her mouth.

”Thanks,” Claudia says, and she means it.

Her eyes bug out a little though, when she looks down, at the liquid inside the flask. After that, she can't stop herself from babbling, “Thank you, for the um, blood. Y’know, I’ve never considered vampirism before, but if it’s this tasty, then maybe you elves are onto something—”

“Oh for the love of—!” The elf exclaims as she raises both hands above her head in exasperation. “It’s Moonberry juice, alright? Berry juice! I've had just about enough of you humans and your nonsense!”

“Oh.”

“ _Oh?_ That's all you have to say?” The affront in the elf’s voice is clear. There’s a grimace on her face when she holds out her hand. Obviously, she wants her drink back. “Eloquent as ever, I see,” she says with a huff.

Claudia blinks. _Oh…_ she thinks again as she passes the flask back to her in a daze. She’s heard the stories. As kids, war veterans would regale them with stories as they showed off their battle scars. _This was where the beast sunk his fangs! And here is where the savage plunged the knife._

“Um. Hey... sorry for jumping to conclusions,” Claudia bites her lip, unsure about what to say. “Thank you, it… really does taste great. Thanks… for saving my life, too…”

They’ve all been weaned on stories of bloodthirsty elves. She always took them as facts. They all did…

Claudia frowns. How much of what she knew about the elves was hyperbole? How much were downright lies? What would knowing the truth change things, though? The truth was that Moonshadow elves killed King Harrow. The truth was that they killed King Harrow, and now her father wanted Callum and Ezran dead.

Once upon a time, the lines between right and wrong seemed clear as night and day. Now, nothing made sense anymore.

Silence stretches tenuously between them until finally, the elf clears her throat.

“Hello… earth to the Dark Mage. You still there?” says the not-so-bloodthirsty elf assassin. “C’mon, I think it’s time to change the bandages.”

“I… alright,” Claudia responds, eager for anything to take her mind off her troubled musings. 

* * *

The campfire putters on diligently, but the crackle and pop of burning firewood is muted by the rain. Water seems to fall like a flood from the sky. It’s too dark out to properly see, but from the sound alone, Claudia can tell it’s quite a downpour.

“Hope you don't mind, I had to raid your bag for supplies,” says the elf as she begins to unravel the old, blood-crusted bandages from around Claudia’s abdomen.

“Eh, personal privacy’s a small price to pay for my life,” Claudia says with a shrug, though goosebumps still rise on her skin. It’s probably the cold, she thinks, from having one less layer to insulate her.

“Alright, then. I took back my braid though. What's up with that? Were you voodoo-ing me or something?” accuses the elf, her suspicion plainly displayed on her face.

Claudia lets out a nervous laugh, then glances awkwardly to the side. “Nope! No voodoo. Just a tracking spell, I swear.”

“I don't quite believe you, but alright,” she says with a mild glare as she presses a rain-damp washcloth over Claudia’s skin, dutifully cleaning the area around the wound. “You’re very lucky, y’know that?”

“Really?” Claudia eyes her skeptically. The elf’s hands are gentle, but the cold makes Claudia shiver and the pain makes her gnash her teeth. It’s a small price to pay for her life though. A small price.

“Yeah. It was a clean cut, straight through. If your gut had got pierced instead—” she gently prods a part of Claudia’s stomach, making her yelp—”you'd have suffered a slow, painful death. Take it from me.”

“Oh…” Claudia bites her lip uncertainly. “Are you speaking from experience?”

“Well, no—” she flounders at this, for some reason. Claudia sees it unfurl over her, from the keyed-up twitch of her vibrant lavender eyes, to the way she slumps her shoulder. She falters only briefly, thereupon, her voice seems to only grow in postulated confidence—”but there were case studies! And I was top of the class.”

She’s very expressive. Oh, it’s kind of adorable.

“Sure, Miss Assassin,” Claudia says with a short bark of laughter. “I get it. I was top of the class too, you know.”

The elf has the cheek to give her a considering once-over before shooting her a skeptical, unimpressed look. “You don't say,” says the elf with a small, smug smirk.

“I can't believe you're doubting my magical prowess,” Claudia whines. She places a hand on her chest and over the wraps, feigning hurt. “You should consider it an honour to be the archenemy of someone so learned in magic.”

So alright, that callout wasn’t unwarranted. Claudia was top of a class of one. But hey, she would've topped either way. She was an excellent magical apprentice! Those were indisputable _facts_.

“Is that what we are?” The elf chuckles, still unimpressed. “I don't know, I've fought some pretty hardcore enemies. There was this woman who used her shield as a battering ram and this moustachioed guy with a sun-forged steel dagger—”

“—My magic is pretty formidable, too!”

“The last time we fought, you squished a bug in your hand before casting a spell,” says Rayla with a halfhearted grimace. “You gotta admit, that’s kinda gross.”

“Well, that’s how Dark Magic works! And it was a spider! Spiders are cool.”

“Tell you what…” The girl gives a considering hum. “You get some points for summoning those smoke wolves the first time we fought. One chomped on my arm pretty good. How about that?”

Claudia’s eyes widen. On instinct, she glances down at the other girl’s arms, feeling relief when she can't discern any scars. _It's different when you know a person,_ Claudia thinks. _It feels different when you know a person hurt by your magic._

Silence reigns for a minute longer before Claudia replies.

“You drive a hard bargain, Miss Assassin. A hard bargain, but I'll take it.”

“Enough already with the monickers,” the elf grouses. “I have a name! It’s Rayla!”

Claudia blinks, surprised at the outburst.

“Rayla,” Claudia says, testing how it sounds on her tongue. _It’s a nice name,_ she thinks.

“Whoops. Where are my manners?” Claudia gives an awkward laugh before recomposing herself. “I’m Claudia.”

_All this talk…_ _Rayla’s trying to distract me from the pain_ , Claudia thinks, recalling how she would do the same for Soren before popping dislocated joints back into place. It’s… a kind gesture.

* * *

Beyond the mouth of the cave, lightning flashes, followed by a clap of thunder. It’s pouring like never before, Claudia thinks. She hopes that Soren is alright, she really does. She hopes that Callum and Ezran are alright as well…

“What happened on the mountain? I think I know, but it’s all a blur,” Claudia asks, scrunching up her face. The thought had been niggling at the back of her head. She can't push it aside for any longer.

“You’re asking me?” The elf shoots her a look of disbelief. With one hand, she sheepishly rubs the back of her neck.

“ _Please_. Rayla, I want to know.” Claudia shoots her a pleading look, bites at the corner of her lips.

“We fought...”

_You tried to kill me._ The words go unspoken, but Claudia knows the truth of their last bout, and grimaces in turn.

“It was chaos… You tried to intervene, when that swordsman lunged at the princes. Not sure what triggered it, but then there was some sort of magical explosion. You were thrown off the side of the mountain… And so was I. The river carried us away…. I lost track of the others when I blacked out, but when I came to, there you were, washed up ashore…” Rayla says evenly as she continues winding the bandages around Claudia’s abdomen.

It still hurts, but it’s less painful than Claudia expects. Four fingers or not, the girl is very nimble. It’s probably an occupational skill one picks up, Claudia thinks as she feels the ghost of a touch skirt her skin.

“Do you think they made it out alright?” Claudia asks, her question carried away by the roaring wind.

“Have some faith. I’ve learned firsthand that you humans are made of sturdier stuff than you look,” Rayla says, trying to be reassuring. “The same goes for you. It was touch and go for awhile, but I'm glad you pulled through. Eloquent as you are, this is still better conversation than with a corpse.”

"I… thank you. I can’t say it enough times,” Claudia says with a little laugh as she clutches her arm. ”You didn't have to save me. My brother and me, we almost got all of you killed.”

“Not quite the tit for tat you expected, eh?” says the elf with a smile as she leans back to examine her handiwork. She needn't fuss. The bandages are just taut enough, Claudia wants to say.

“To be honest, I did consider leaving you to try and rejoin the others. But you were bleeding out, and I figured you can't have been that bad. After all, you did fall on a sword for them,” Rayla admits, a jaunty grin plastered on her face.

“It wasn't…” Claudia lets out a nervous laugh, her cheeks growing pink. “I didn't mean to actually impale myself. It happened so fast, I just didn't want them to get killed.”

“Well, it’s the thought that counts, I guess. You succeeded, didn't you?”

“I don't know... I don't have any regrets, but I feel like such a failure…” Claudia says as she holds her face in her hands. It’s dumb, but she doesn’t want Rayla to see how her eyes are slowly prickling with tears. “I’ve pretty much betrayed my entire family and committed high treason against Katolis by disobeying my father. All my life I’ve trusted him. All my life I’ve believed in him, and now… I’ve never felt so lost.”

The tears come easier than Claudia had thought they would. It helps that the wind and rain muffles the sounds of her sobs, she thinks. It helps that Rayla isn’t looking at her like a lost child, to be reprimanded and shown the way. Those days are over. Claudia lets out a shuddering breath then, suddenly overcome with the sense that something very profound has come to an end.

“Saving the lives of two princes count as high treason? That sounds like a load of bullshit to me,” says Rayla with a scowl. She sighs in the aftermath, then takes to examining Claudia’s head wound. “If it helps, I’ve been in the same boat as you.”

“Oh, that was what it was. We lost your trail at a river and never actually found a boat.” Claudia hiccups and wipes her nose. ”Kind of a weird thing to commiserate over, but I appreciate the effort.”

“No, I meant the first time we met, that night in the castle!” The elf says with a roll of her eyes. “My mission was to kill Prince Ezran. And I failed spectacularly.”

“…Oh! That makes way more sense,” Claudia says with a hiccuping laugh. The world’s a little blurry from her tears, but Claudia can see well enough to make out a soft, dry cloth Rayla holds out in front of her face.

Claudia blinks a few times before she takes the cloth to dab at her eyes. Rayla stops leaning over to fuss over her head wound and plops down next to Claudia instead.

“My mentor taught me that the only way to secure our future was to strike at our enemies, without hesitation and without mercy. He was like a father to me, and for the longest time, I believed him.”

“But… y’know… I’ve never actually killed anyone. I’ve faltered every time I had the chance. Some assassin I am, huh?” When Claudia glances over, she sees how Rayla’s hands are fidgeting nervously in her lap. “So… what I’m trying to say is, count me in the same boat when it comes to being a parental disappointment..”

Through the thick curtain of wavy, ashen hair, the tips of Rayla’s pointed ears peek out, and they’re a little pink. Claudia’s cheeks colour at the discovery. She feels seven again, small and shamed at having been discovered rifling through her father’s apothecary stores. On instinct, she looks down at the silk cloth in her palm instead. The deep blue and silver embroidery is delicate and intricate. With a finger, Claudia traces the pattern of a new moon hanging high and proud in the night sky and gives a considerate hum, urging Rayla to continue.

“But… more and more now… I’m starting to question the things I’ve been taught. I’m starting to think that our parents were just too afraid, or lacked the imagination to think of a better way. If their legacy is bloodshed, then maybe we shouldn’t listen to them. Maybe Ezran has it right, and the way forward should be with empathy and reconciliation instead.”

Claudia doesn’t expect the smile she finds on her face. She can’t help the incredulous little “wow” that slips out. When they finally lock eyes, Claudia’s expression goes even softer.

“Wow?” Rayla’s eyebrows pinch together, first in confusion, then in a flare of anger.

“Yeah: wow.” Claudia can’t help the little bark of laughter that follows.

“Hey, no. No—”Claudia says as she waves her arms frantically in front of her—“Don’t glare. I’m… I’m not laughing at you. It’s just that… I can’t believe I thought that you kidnapped Ezran and Callum and had them in some weird… hostage-syndrome thrall. They kept talking about how you were their friend, and why we shouldn’t hurt you. And… I understand now, why they wanted to protect you. You’re alright.”

“Yeah, I know, I know. Way to lay on the praise. Alright for a vile elf, you mean?” Rayla says chidingly as she flicks Claudia’s forehead.

“No, I mean as a person. You’re more than alright, actually.” Claudia laughs again as she rubs at the spot. “And... I think you have a point, too. We were raised on all these horrifying stories about the elves and dragons, but that’s no excuse to be a jerk. I’m sorry for calling you a vile, bloodthirsty elf.“

“Thanks for this,” Claudia says as she holds up the handkerchief. ”And thanks for keeping our princes safe, and thank you for saving my life too. ”

“Sheesh, I get it already. What is it with humans and mushy ramblings?” Rayla grouses, though she wears a grudging smile on her face. “Moving on now, about your head wound: there’s good news and bad news. The good news is that the swelling’s gone down, your vision seems alright, and you don’t seem to have a concussion.”

“That great! Alright, so… what's the bad news?” Claudia asks, going cross-eyed squinting at Rayla’s face in an effort to discern her prognosis.

Rayla steps back, then stands up straight, her arms akimbo. “Well, your head’s fine. So… the awkwardness, weirdness and faux pas—that’s all you, then?” asks the elf with a quirked eyebrow.

“Pretty much,” Claudia says with an easy shrug and an open smile.

“Ugh. No wonder you're friends with Callum,” Rayla says, stepping close to unwind the bandages wrapped around Claudia’s head.

“I feel like you meant that as an insult, but I'm choosing to take it as a compliment,” Claudia says cheekily, angling her head slightly to shoot her a wink.

Rayla scoffs and rolls her eyes. “Of course. No wonder you guys are friends.”

“Thank you once again for the compliment, oh esteemed Elven Assassin,” Claudia says as she gives a small mock bow.

“You’re just… you know my name! You’re just trying to rile me up on purpose, aren’t you?” Rayla grumbles, whipping the old bandage in her direction.

Chortling goofily, Claudia catches the tail end of the cloth in her hand. What a sight she must make. Her eyes are still a little puffy from crying, her side still hurts like hell, but she hasn’t felt so light in days, hasn’t felt so acutely like herself as she does in this one instant.

Cast in the glow of the campfire, they look up and at each other, the strip of cloth a tremulous bridge between them. A moment unfolds delicately as they hold their breath.

And so it happens. Revelation is a gentle and unextraordinary affair; the rustling of fabric as a curtain parts.

The sun doesn’t peek through the dark, stormy sky; the cave floor doesn’t give out where they stand, but something shifts beneath Claudia’s feet, and then, she sees. Rayla: hard-edged, sharp-tongued and eagle-eyed. _Rayla_ : the gruff, softhearted girl who has saved and helped more people than she had ever wanted to put to the sword.

“Rayla,” Claudia says, hesitant, but with a soft smile. ”Can I interest you in some hot brown morning potion?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How was the fic? I really want Claudia and Rayla to become friends, go on a buddy-cop adventure, and date. Maybe in that order.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the road again, Claudia and Rayla face an uncertain future and the threat of an encroaching storm.

Lightning.

Thunder.

Repeating in a chaotic refrain across the overcast sky, the storm nips at their heels, urging them towards shelter. Claudia’s never seen a thunderstorm quite like this before. She wonders if even the likes of Mount Kalik can compare.

Around them, the forest air feels charged and damp. You know what else is damp? The dirt road they’re trailing to the nearest town. She knows the latter acutely. Good heavens, does Claudia miss her steed. She hopes it is grazing in a meadow somewhere, on greener pastures than the situation they’re currently facing.

Rayla is ahead of her: within her line of sight, but only just barely. Judging by the way she’s been restlessly skulking about, she’s tense. Every so often, it’s like she’ll remember that she’s traveling with Claudia and double back to make sure she hasn't keeled over by the side of the road. Whenever Rayla whips back around, Claudia’s satchel swishes in a broad arc, its contents clinking as it is jostled about. The unlikely mishmash of imagery is strangely endearing, Claudia thinks, and does not bother masking a little smile at the thought.

The wound at Claudia’s side still aches terribly, but this is the best she’s felt in days. Still, sweat gathers at her forehead and her back. Cardio isn't her forte even on a good day, and injured and taxed as she is, she can’t keep up with this brisk pace for much longer.

She has to stop for a bit.

Bracing herself against the trunk of a scraggly tree, Claudia peels back layers of dark black cloth to check on the state of her wound. Satisfied that the sutures are holding up just fine, she slips off her sandals to empty it of bits of gravel.

“Holy—”Claudia exclaims with a one-footed hop when Rayla all but materialises suddenly in front of her. On instinct, she almost whomps Rayla upside the head with the damp sandal still in hand. She could have sworn that Rayla was still a ways off. “How did—? You nearly gave me a heart attack!”

“I'm an assassin, remember?” Rayla rolls her eyes. “Being silent and deadly is kind of the point.”

“I get it, I get it. Ugh… way to shave some years off my life,” Claudia says as she places a palm against her thumping heart. “I wish I could put a magic bell on you or something, geez.”

“It won’t end well for you if you try that,” Rayla warns as she levels a mild glare at her. ”Anyway, I’m done scouting the path ahead. It’s uphill from here to the nearest inn—”

“—And the nearest human settlement," Claudia interrupts, her skepticism clear. "You sure it’s wise to stop in a town?”

Easing a foot back into her sandal, she continues trailing after Rayla.

“I can do a great human impression,” Rayla insists, “You’ll see that I blend in just fine. All I need to do is put up my hood and wear some gloves.”

“You sure about that? I’ve heard that story before. Didn’t it end with you guys fleeing to Cursed Caldera?”

“T-there were extenuating circumstances!" Rayla grouses, her fingers curling instinctively around her right wrist.

”Look, I don’t like the idea of staying near a bunch of elf-hating humans either—” Rayla insists as she steps over a fallen tree trunk blocking their way—"but it beats being out in the open during a storm like this. There’s all this lightning and thunder, but barely any rain… if we’re not careful, we’ll get caught in a forest fire.”

“Relax.” Claudia shoots her a wink. “You’re with a mage, remember?”

“An injured mage,” Rayla stresses as she extends a hand to help Claudia step over the felled tree.

Claudia frowns, but takes her hand nonetheless. She can’t exactly argue against Rayla’s reasoning in her current state. She thinks this all the more when pain pierces her side. The worst of it passes in moments, leaving sharp, throbbing aftershocks.

“How’s your wound holding up?” Rayla inquires. As if picking up on her pain, her tone is uncharacteristically gentle.

“It could be better, but eh. I’m not complaining.” Claudia says hastily, and brushes past her.

It hurts, but… The pain serves as a constant reminder that they really need to be on their way. Rayla’s clued her into their route, but it feels like they’re playing a losing game of catch-up. She needs to know that Soren’s alright. She needs Soren to know that she’s alright, too… Oh god, and then there was the matter of Callum, Ezran and the dragon. 

They’re facing too many unknowns right now, too many ways things can go wrong again. The longer they dawdle, the more dangerous it feels…

She jolts from the hand Rayla lays over her shoulder, doesn’t know what at all to make of the pointed, albeit apologetic way Rayla looks at her.

“We won’t make it there before nightfall,” Rayla says curtly. “Not at the pace we’re going.”

“Oh…”Claudia answers, breaking eye-contact to look dejectedly off to the side. She fidgets on the spot, bites her lip. “I don't think I can go any faster, not… with the state I'm in.” If only she could do something with her magic. She’d relied on it for too much and for so long that now she felt handicapped in more ways than one.

 _So… this was it, huh?_ Claudia thought with a frown. It’s not like she didn’t see it coming, she just… hoped they wouldn’t have to part ways so soon. How could Claudia blame her? They were enemies far longer than they had been… whatever they were right now, on this tremulous, unsteady ground between stranger and friend.

“I guess you’ll want to go on ahead without me,” Claudia says dejectedly as she toes a stray pebble.

She hears Rayla cluck her tongue, looks up to see the elf ruffle her already-tousled silver hair.

“That’s not what I meant,” Rayla grumbles. “Don’t go deciding stuff on your own.”

Claudia looks at her and blinks, blank-faced and confused. Rayla is very expressive, but Claudia doesn’t know what to make of the delicate way her eyebrows pinch together, or the squiggly frown playing across her face.

“Look, just… ugh!” Rayla huffs before taking two great strides forward. She has Claudia half-convinced she’s storming away in a huff, but then she abruptly kneels down. She glances at Claudia, and pointing a thumb to her back, says, "Get on. I’ll carry you.”

“Oh.”

“Oh?” Rayla quirks an eyebrow and shoots her a pointed look as if to say: oh god, not this again.

“Oh! Uhh… Not that I don’t appreciate the thought,” Claudia says with an incredulous laugh as she scurries forward, her hands clasped behind her back. ”But I’m… taller than you. And… probably heavier.”

“Don’t underestimate me. I know how heavy you are,” Rayla says cooly, angling her head to stare defiantly at her. “I hoisted you deadweight from the river.”

“You’re… not going to take no for an answer, are you?” Claudia says, a little giddy, bemused in spite of everything.

”Good guess. So unless you have a levitation spell on hand, you’ll save us all some time if you’d just get on, already.”

“Alright, alright. Pushy much?”

“I think you mean persuasive. Come on already. We’re burning daylight here.”

“Promise you’ll let me down if you get tired.”

“Ok. Fine,” Rayla says with a roll of her eyes and a small smile of her own.

 

* * *

 

It’s a change of pace and perspective, quite literally. The period of adjustment entails lots of wriggling on Claudia’s part and lots of grumbling on Rayla’s, but they make it work somehow.

(Eventually.)

At one point, Claudia straightens up and leans forward to tuck her chin on top of Rayla’s head and in-between her horns. It’s a snug little perch, though she’ll admit, they must make quite a hilarious sight to behold.

”Careful, or you’ll poke an eye out,” Rayla warns as she continues her brisk pace.

”That sounds… dangerous.” Claudia lets out a considering hum. ”I’ve got some spare corks from empty reagent bottles in my bag. Do you mind if I-“

“Don’t you dare!” Rayla harrumphs, and pinches her side.

Claudia’s yelp morphs into a giggling fit at the mental image of Rayla she conjures up: arms crossed and horns… corked. _Pfft_! Would the backlash be worth the payoff? Maybe, she thinks a little slyly, in another context where Rayla wouldn’t be in a position to throw her off like a wild, angry stallion. Claudia wipes a stray tear from her eye with one hand and steadies herself by looping an arm around Rayla’s neck with the other.

When she looks down, she notices how the tips of Rayla’s pointed ears have coloured the most endearing shade of pink. From anger or embarrassment, she can’t tell, but on instinct, she reaches out to trace the shell of a pointed ear. She reigns herself in at the last second, for fear of... she isn't quite sure what. It doesn't feel right, in any case.

How long has it been now? How much longer must they travel? She glances behind her, but can't make out any familiar landmarks to help her gauge how far they've travelled, just the dark, roiling clouds and the crackling streaks of lightning. Rayla looks… no worse for wear though, which is quite a feat, all things considered.

“Y’know, my brother used to carry me like this when I was little,” Claudia says after the bout of silence. “He called it weight-training.”

“We call it a piggyback ride, back in Xadia,” Rayla says. She doesn’t need to look at Claudia to get her point across, Claudia can hear the little smirk from her voice alone.

"They're called piggyback rides back in Katolis too!" Claudia laughed. “You’re poking fun at me again, aren’t you?”

“I like to think that you’re doing that to yourself,” Rayla says, a little snide, a little playful. Her tone shifts then, grows a little more vulnerable. “I… don't have older siblings, but I’d get rides too, back when I was little.“

Claudia gives an affirmative hum of acknowledgement that tapers off into a yawn. It takes awhile to get used to, Claudia thinks, of their relationship. So much of it felt like a balancing act, like there was a rhythm to it. Conversation would bubble and build to a crescendo before falling away, like the waves lapping at the shore, or the chirruping melodies Pip would sing. 

She let out a sigh and sags a little more limply into Rayla’s hold. There were still so many questions she wanted to ask, so many uncertainties she wanted to share. The cogs of the world had been in motion for millennia, and she wasn’t sure what they could do to alter its course.  

She can’t fight the fatigue on her own, but Rayla swats away the hand reaching for her satchel. 

Claudia whines petulantly. It looks like hot brown morning potion will have to wait.

“Close your eyes for a bit. Rest. I’ll wake you when we’re near.”

Rayla’s sharp, but her back is warm, and she smelt of pine and rain. Claudia lays the shell of her ear against Rayla’s back and hears the faint, sturdy thumping of her heart. She focuses on the sound, that constant, steady rhythm, and the threat of the storm falls away a little more with each step forward Rayla takes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope y'all enjoyed this interlude that spawned because of SEASON 2 HYPE! Who else is super excited for them to interact again?


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An assassin doesn't decide right from wrong, only life and death. She had told Callum that once, what felt like a lifetime ago. She wasn’t that same elf anymore. Right from wrong were things she needed to parse out on her own, every day of her life.
> 
> In a moment of truth, Rayla makes a choice that will forever alter the course of her destiny. Yes. Again.

Rayla opens her eyes to an abyss. Her gasp comes out garbled as water rushes in to fill her nose, her throat, her lungs. She’s choking, drowning as she’s tossed about by the currents, struggling as darkness presses down all around, the icy sting leeching strength from her limbs.

The water’s crushing against her eardrums. She clenches her mouth shut and struggles to swim to the surface, but she can’t tell up from down, left from right. She’s a child again, treading water in a bathtub. She’s a child again, alone and afraid and certain of only one thing.  _I’ll die here_ , Rayla thinks with dread. In this place where her swords can’t cut down enemies. In these depths where her cunning finds no purchase.

What would her life amount to, if she should slip beneath now and get carried away?

 _No,_ Rayla thinks, raging with a determination bordering on desperation.  _Not yet. Not now. Not for something so meaningless._

Lightning strikes the water then, and she sees, illuminated by electric blue, the spindling thread of air as bubbles escape her mouth.

 _Up_ , she swims. _Up._

* * *

Lightning cleaves the darkness again when she breaks past the choppy surface of the river. It’s so bright, it’s almost blinding. For an instant though, it’s enough for Rayla to see a figure barely floating, comatose in the water.

She sees pale skin, long dark hair.  _You wanted me dead,_ Rayla thinks with scorn.  _You wanted to be the one to kill me. I could cast you adrift, and no one would blame me for it._

Rayla swims to her instead because it feels like the right thing to do, and Rayla’s always been a creature of instinct. She tells herself it’s better the devil you know than the devil you don’t, and clinging to the mage, she takes solace in the fact that she is not alone. 

It’s hard enough though, to keep one head above choppy waters, let alone two. When a sturdy chunk of driftwood slams against her back, Rayla curses and rejoices in the same breath. She hoists the human’s limp form up, drapes the other girl’s arms over the log before she braces them both for any dangers ahead.

They drift to the point where a part of Rayla is convinced they’re already dead. For all she knows, this is what the afterlife is really like: a loop of your last moments ad infinitum. Well,  _great._  It’s just her luck that her death reel is water-related. 

Her eyes grow accustomed to the darkness eventually, but the water’s just so numbingly cold. Rayla has to bite the inside of her cheek to stay awake. She’s on the verge of falling asleep when she feels the currents shift about them. The river widens, the currents slow, and there, in the distance, she spots an embankment. 

Rayla forsakes the log. Mustering all her strength, she hauls the comatose girl with one arm and swims to the shore. 

* * *

Water drains from the girl’s nose and mouth when Rayla gingerly tilts her head to the side. She looks so young, Rayla thinks, lips drawing into a thin line. No older than her. It’d be easy to mistake the human for a civilian casualty, caught in the crossfire. Rayla knows better though. She’d recognise those black robes anywhere. Even now, they cling like a second skin except for a ripped patch at her abdomen, where blood seeps from an open wound. 

It’s not fear that grips Rayla now though, nor hatred. Those emotions can’t find traction, not with the serene set of the girl’s face. There was a solemn weight to it all, how her features bear no trace of pain despite the wounds and trauma she had endured. 

Rayla sinks to her knees in the coarse sand and takes hold of the girl’s limp wrist. The skin was impossibly pallid, her hand terribly still. Rayla could feel a cold dread, like invisible hands slowly coiling tighter and tighter around her throat as she peels back a black sleeve to press fingers to a pulse. Rayla could hear her own heartbeat pick up as she bends over to put an ear to the human’s heart. 

There was no other way to put it. She looked like a dead teenage girl. Wasting no more time, she lay her hands over the girl’s chest and began pumping rhythmically.  _Breathe!_ Rayla frantically wills. She tilts her face skyward, pinches her nose and breathes in. Again, Rayla presses an ear to her chest. Again, the body before her lay still. 

The gravel from the embankment digs uncomfortably into her knees and legs. Her wet hair clumps and clings to her forehead and the back of her neck, but Rayla trembles not from the cold or exhaustion. She knows they’re running out of time. 

“Breathe, damn it!” Rayla shouts fruitlessly after her fifth failed attempt to revive her. 

Rayla’s eyes sting. In the beginning, she had convinced herself it was just the water and sweat. But Rayla couldn’t ignore it now, not with the tears falling steadily on the girl’s face. She knew it was irrational, but it irked her: a small part of herself that wasn’t entirely consumed with trying to save a life. Why was she so desperate to save this human? This one girl who just today, had sought her death. 

She thinks about all the grotesque atrocities on display in that Katolian dungeon, thinks about a thousand acts of senseless violence and one act of complete selflessness. Was it enough to redeem her? Enough to wipe clean her debt of blood? 

Rayla clenches her teeth to stifle her sobs, but still she refuses to give up, refuses to fail yet another person. For the first time in a long while, her thoughts drift to Runaan. Had her actions that night truly been for the best? She supposes she’ll never truly know. Life never yielded easy answers, just messy feelings. She hadn’t even properly grieved for him and the others, yet here she was: spilling tears for a stranger she barely knew; mourning for a girl she didn’t want dead. 

After the seventh attempt to revive her, Rayla’s ears prick up at the faint motion under her hands. A heartbeat. A heartbeat! An instant later and the body before her splutters to life, convulses as she expels a deluge of water from her mouth and nose and lets out a feeble groan. 

“You’re alive!” Rayla exclaims with a watery laugh, completely overwhelmed. “You’re alive!”

_An assassin doesn't decide right from wrong, only life and death._ She had told Callum that once, what felt like a lifetime ago. He had refused to accept it back then, refused to go along with the bloody cycle of revenge and retribution chaining their people together. 

Rayla wasn’t that same elf anymore, she knew. Right from wrong were things she needs to parse out on her own, every day of her life.

She surges forward to help the trembling girl sit up and firmly pats her back to help her dislodge the rest of the water. She weeps openly, tears of joy, because that’s what life was, Rayla had come to realise: a miracle. 

* * *

“Tell me a story,” says they human. Cast aglow in the dark by the light of the fire, her olive eyes burnish gold for a moment, like sunlight flitting through the leaves.

Rayla’s heart stutters in her chest at that shade of green, so much like the verdant forests of home. Unbidden, memories surge up, of another time, when she had raced sure-footed through the forests, evading her keepers, frustrating her elders. Her giggles blend with the whistling wind and rustling leaves, like she counted even nature itself a playmate. 

Rayla blinks once, and again, still a little dazed as she comes back to herself. Her lips part with a long sigh. Somewhere inside her, a door shuts, gently and without preamble. About her, the cave is awash in craggy, muted brown and grey and home is but a distant memory, bittersweet and forlorn on her tongue. Before her is a girl in a makeshift cot: her cheeks flushed from the fever, her eyes glassy from exhaustion. 

Tonight is not the first time the human speaks, but it is the first time she stirs from her fitful slumber, the first time she tries and fails to sit up. Quick as a blink, Rayla’s at her side, helping her to sit up and sip some Moonberry juice to regain her strength. The girl settles back down with a whimper, shivers like a newborn foal feeling the breeze for the first time in its life. 

Rayla pulls the cloak higher about her body, tucks it below the girl’s chin. She wipes away the clammy sweat gathering at her forehead and neck, replaces the damp cloth that had fallen off her forehead, then hovers uncertainly by her ward’s side. 

She thinks of Ezran’s sniffling nose and chittering teeth after falling through the ice, then throws more kindling onto the fire.  _Humans are such fragile creatures,_ she thinks with a frown, and doesn’t expect the feeble grip of hands fisting the fabric about her waist. 

“Don’t go.”

The human’s eyes are wide and glassy. Tears gather at their edges, like small pearls. They fall away when her eyes shut, unable to bear the weight of exhaustion. Her hand falls away soon after too, but still her fingers reach blindly, feebly into the night, grasping at phantom comforts.

Rayla’s heart clenches involuntarily at the sight. She understands the gesture without words, without the common ground of shared tongue or culture. She knows too, what it is like to be alone in the dark. Her thoughts return to the faithful night her world turned upside down: facing off on human battlements against Runaan’s blades, its edges slick with poison. She thinks about bleeding out alone, upon the cold stone of a foreign land, and shudders, despite herself. 

They all have things they’d stake their lives on. They all have things they’d die for.

Fire crackles and pops in the background while the girl whimpers. Her eyes clench shut tightly as more tears flow. You're fighting an uphill battle, Rayla thinks. _Against the fever, infection, and blood loss._ Rayla dabs away the treks of tears with her dark, handwoven handkerchief. She’s done all she can, but it still feels like not enough; she’s a trained assassin, not a medic.

Rayla looks into her bleary green eyes and can’t help the memories trailing like autumn shedding its leaves. Her mother sits her on her knee and hums a soft tune as she braids Rayla’s wind-tousled hair. Her father halfheartedly chides her reckless adventuring, though he shoots them both a warm smile. 

The silver plating of their armour gleam gold from the setting sun as they turn away from her… 

Rayla wipes tears away with her free hand. She glares indignantly at the girl, but it’s herself she’s angry at, for the moment of weakness put on display. Rayla’s expression softens at the realisation that the mage is not looking at her, but past her. At something else. Someone else.  _Not monsters, but ghosts,_ Rayla thinks, guilty for the misplaced flare of anger. 

Fever dreams are vicious things that sink their hooks in you. Rayla can abide their company. She has ghosts of her own to face down. Rayla bites her lip, ruffles her silver hair and lets out a long sigh. She’s neither a medic right now, nor an assassin, just Rayla: homesick and lost, trying her best to help someone in need.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Rayla says fiercely as she slips her hand in hers and squeezes. "You’re not alone, alright? So don’t give up. No matter what.”

_Tell me a story,_ comes the echo of the girl’s request. Rayla squeezes the hand in hers and hopes it is reassuring enough. Her voice frays at the edges as she begins a tale.

Tonight, they contend with their own ghosts, but they needn’t be alone. 

* * *

The walls of the inn are thin. Rayla doesn’t have to strain her ears to hear the bard strumming his lute as he sings a ‘rousing’ song about smiting elves and slaying dragons. She can hear them all, one floor below: the boisterous laughter of drunkards and the stomping boots of people dancing and singing along. She has half a mind to storm downstairs and shove that lute right up his—!

“Ugh!” Rayla yells as she gives up trying to stifle the ruckus with her pillow.  _Humans are the absolute worst!_ Rayla thinks as she reaches behind her neck to draw up her hood. 

Grumbling, she turns to her side and, crossing her arms over her chest, glares fiercely at the roiling, stormy sky beyond the panelled glass window. How could these people make light of such a grave situation? How dare they, when so many were fighting for a cause and dying to protect a future they believed in?

“Hey, are you doing alright?” comes a tentative voice from her left. “I can hear you thinking from over here.”

She can feel the other girl shift and sit up on the skinny, threadbare bed. Rayla jerks her shoulder away at the touch of a hand. _Great_!  On top of everything else, she had to deal with Black Magic gobbledygook too!

“If you’re pulling some black magic nonsense, get out of my damn head!” Rayla snipes in response, not bothering to look over. Not at all in the mood, she takes instead to glaring harder at the thunderstorm raging outside, choking off any means of escaping this long night of total bullshit. 

Her gaze shifts a little lower and it’s her own reflection staring back at her: an ugly, churning portrait of anger and resentment. Behind her, the human hovers, nursing a hurt expression and staring at her hands like she’d done something wrong. 

Rayla inhales sharply. She put a hand to her temple and presses until she sees stars dance behind her eyelids. She let out a long sigh. 

_Claudia_ ,  Rayla thinks. _Her name's Claudia._   She hasn’t entirely gotten used to the thought. It didn’t help that human names all sound so strange on her tongue. 

Her name is Claudia and right now at least, her eyes weren’t pitch black, just a wounded shade of green. _And maybe humans really are the worst, but Claudia is just Claudia,_ she thinks guiltily.

“Look, I’m… sorry,” Rayla says, unsteady in both the thought and practice of admitting fault. She turns around to face her, hopes her expression can convey what her words can’t. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”

“Hey, don’t sweat it. People tend to… think a lot of weird stuff about Dark Mages,” Claudia says, with a sheepish smile and a shrug. Her smile lingers, morphing slowly into one tinged with nostalgia. “Y’know, I waved a stick around my brother once, and for two weeks, he convinced himself he’d been cursed.”

“I can’t blame him. Dark magic is really messed up, but it’s not about-!” Rayla tsks. “Can’t you hear it?”

Claudia blinks blankly at her. She tilts her head quizzically before arching an eyebrow.  _Hear what?_ her expression seems to say. 

“You mean the stomping boots?” Claudia hazards as she points below them, then above. “The thunder and lightning?”

In response, Rayla drags a hand over her face in exasperation. Was Claudia that daft? Or was her hearing just that bad? She hadn’t been reading Rayla’s mind in any case.  _Obviously_. Unless… she was as lousy a clairvoyant as Rayla had been at assassinating targets. It was so frustrating how Rayla could never tell when it came to her.

“I’m—”Rayla bangs her fist against the wooden headboard behind her in exasperation—”talking about all the singing downstairs!”

”Oh.”

There’s an answering thump from the room next door. “Keep it down,” comes an old man’s muffled yelling. “Some of us are trying to sleep!”

“Sorry!” Claudia yells back.

Rayla’s hand falls numbly to her lap in the aftermath. Heaving a sigh, she leans up to stare listlessly at the ceiling. Her horns knock noisily against the wooden bed frame before silence stagnates the air.

“So… hey, you must be pretty tired, huh? From carrying me for so long.” Claudia says as she breaks the awkward lull in conversation. She shoots Rayla an apologetic smile as she gingerly scratches the side of her cheek. “Sorry about the noise… I know it’s making it hard to rest, but don’t worry, I know just the spell that’ll muffle the ruckus!” 

They break eye contact when Claudia turns to her side of the bed to retrieve a grimoire from her satchel. 

“Ah-hah!” she exclaims triumphantly after she’s done flipping to a specific page. ”All I need now is some trusty wyrmweed, candles and some wasp thorax.” She turns to Rayla then and smiles, eager to help. 

Rayla’s mouth pulls into a squiggly line at the sight. She doesn’t know quite what to do, or how to feel. Of course she objects on principle! It’s just that all along she had pictured dark mages as malicious and cruel, self-serving humans, not someone her age, not this… strange, cheery noodle of a person so eagerly determined to help her. Runaan never told her that it’d be anything like this! ...Though to be fair, it feels like no lesson plan in the world could have possibly prepared her for Claudia.

Claudia holds up the open pages of the book for her to see, and Rayla is seized by the sudden desire to shield her eyes from the radiance. She focuses on the grimoire instead of Claudia’s beaming, guileless face, and blanches at the illustration of a summoning circle.  _Dark magic_ , she thinks, tense now because of a whole different reason.  _Of course._

“Ugh!” Rayla shoves the book away. “Keep your worms to yourself.” 

“Okay... you’re not a fan of wyrmweed. Well, I do have an enchanted ocarina that can put you right to sleep,” she says as she turns to fish something out of her satchel. ”It might not work though, with all the rabble downstairs.”

“Forget it! I don’t want any of your dark magic,” Rayla says as she pushes the instrument away.

Claudia raises no objections after that, other than shooting her a disappointed pout. Rayla pointedly looks away from the other girl: guilty at the sight, but still conflicted with what to do. She stares sternly at a spot on the wall, and keeps staring, even as the bed groans. Light and sound flood into the room from the main hall, then drain in the span of a door creaking open and shut. 

And then Rayla is alone in the room with her thoughts; alone but for the boisterous, almost obnoxious sound of celebration downstairs. Curling up into a ball, Rayla turns to her side, grumbling. _Good going, Rayla_ , she thinks self-derisively. Why did she even try to bring up the issue to begin with! She glares at the raging squall outside, at the thick raindrops running rivulets down the windows, at her own sulky reflection. 

Minutes pass like this. They feel like eons as a storm rages, within and without. Rayla heaves a haggard sigh as her features scrunch up. The room is a cage and her mind is a wild animal pacing restlessly back and forth, hurt and angry, homesick beyond all reason. 

Downstairs, they’ve moved on to another song: a medley about the “brave soldiers of the Standing Battalion”. 

* * *

She’s thinking about hightailing it out into the night, in the middle of the maelstrom when the door creaks open again. She can tell it’s Claudia from the sound of her footfalls, but she waits until the bed dips before she turns over. Part of her expects to see her carrying something weird, like a bowl of worms, but what she sees instead is a plate of human food and a glass of milk.

“Blueberry pie. I figured you wouldn’t mind the filling,” Claudia says with a smile as she lays the glass of milk on the counter. “No dark magic, no poison, no wyrms.” Claudia makes a show of solemnly bringing her fingers together in the sign of an oath. “I swear.”

Rayla lets out a chuckle as she sits up in bed. “I thought all you guys ever ate was bread.” 

“Wow! What? Why…” A gamut of emotions flit across Claudia’s face. At the end of it, she clutches her heart, expression aghast. “Rayla, I feel hurt on behalf of humanity’s rich and extensive culinary history.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it.”

“Aww, you just think that because you zipped upstairs without dinner,” Claudia pouts. “Have a bite at least! You’re missing out here." 

“No offence, but I think I’ll take my chances with berries for now.”

“But there are berries here, too!” There’s the clatter of metal against porcelain. “See? No poison or wyrms,“ Claudia says with a mouthful of pie. She waggles her eyebrows. ”C’mon. It’s delicious!”

Rayla rolls her eyes, but smiles at the kind gesture. “Ugh. Don’t talk with your mouth full. You’re getting crumbs on the bed,” Rayla chides as she takes the plate from out of Claudia’s outstretched hand. Rayla knows an olive branch when she sees one. _One bite,_ she thinks. _That’ll be enough to get me off the hook._

Rayla doesn’t expect to like it at all, and she’s left pleasantly surprised. She chews thoughtfully and hums at the sweet, tart taste, the flaky, savour bits of crust. It wasn’t bad at all, but still, she debates the merits of admitting so to Claudia.

“I heard them singing downstairs,” Claudia says after swallowing (audibly). “I think… I understand now, why you were angry before.

“For what it’s worth—and I know it’s not worth much—I’m sorry,” Claudia continues quietly, her tone sincere and a little ashamed. “The people here: they don’t know any better. What most of us know about Xadia are stories from soldiers and mercenaries who fought in the war, or from royal edicts. But I don’t think that about elves. Not… not anymore, not after meeting you. And neither do Callum and Ezran.“

Rayla doesn’t doubt Claudia’s earnestness in the least. The girl read like an open book, from the spark in her eyes, to the animated way she gestures when she talks... Rayla’s thoughts trail off, half-formed and shapeless in her mind, unsure about the point she’s trying to make. She tries to school them by focusing on something other than Claudia’s words.

…Claudia can be messy eater sometimes, Rayla hadn’t learned that until today. There were crumbs on her face and the gold trimmings of her dark, feathered mage robe. A part of Rayla wants to reach out and brush them away. Another part of her wonders about what had to die in order to fashion her outfit: a flock of ravens, maybe, or a young, black-coated griffin. 

Rayla thinks back to that night she pulled her from the river: dark hair and pallid skin, water draining from her nose and mouth, onto the coarse sand. If their roles then had been reversed, where would Rayla be right now? In chains and shackles? Rotting away in the squalid prison of the nearest human settlement? 

She thinks back to their first encounter, to that macabre display of pickled creatures and horned skulls, and something stabs through her heart. Would Claudia have whittled her down like a log of wood? Carved her out, bit by bit, until there was nothing left but bone? 

A fickle creature was fate. What good was it to dwell on what-ifs? There was only the here and now: her end of destiny’s knot she could grasp and unravel with her two hands. 

She lets Claudia’s words steep in the night air like a delicate pot of tea. She stares openly and wonders when the lines between them had gotten so blurred. 

She has another forkful of pie even though she finds it harder now, to swallow. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was brought to you by Rayla’s Complicated Emotions™. Holler if it was much too dark, yeah? I'm a lil worried about that and properly tagging stuff. 
> 
> In other news: Can we discuss s2???? Wrecked me.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Learning all the ways around each other is a steep process in more ways than one. Two steps forward and one step back, that’s what it feels like sometimes, as daunting and uncertain as scaling the tallest peak in the world.

“Woah, woah, woah.” Claudia hears the bed creak behind her. “Where are you running off to so late?”  

When she turns to look at Rayla, she’s greeted with a stern glare framed by her fluffy, bed-tousled hair. Aww…! It’s like she’s an angry cloud. Soft, but tumultuous.  

“Relax, Rayla. I’m just bringing these down." Claudia gives her an easy shrug and an open smile. The silverware chinks when she holds the plate out for Rayla to see. “Ever leave unwashed dishes overnight? Scum’s like, really nasty.” 

“You know that’s bullshit. Out with it: what’s with the bag?” Crossing her arms, Rayla inclines her head to gesture at the satchel slung casually over Claudia’s shoulder. “And don’t go telling me it’s because you need a ‘magic cleaning potion’ in there or something.” She goes to the trouble of adding air quotes to make her point. 

Claudia’s eyes widen just so.  _What-?_  How does Rayla know about her newest prototype AKA bubbly white cleaning potion? Oh wait, that was a joke.  _Ha!_  Claudia gets it. 

“Aw, c’mon. Elves don’t find overnight scum nasty?” Claudia says, trying to keep the conversation light. She sticks out her tongue in a measure of disgust at the thought. 

Rayla scoffs. “First off, scum is nasty all around.” 

“Yeah, right? Well, then—” Claudia’s fingernails tap impatiently against the door behind her, light slipping in as it opens, just a crack— “catch you later.” 

“Ugh!” Rayla jolts upright in bed with a slap to her thighs. Her new position makes it easier for them to see eye-to-eye, but that’s most true only in the literal sense. “Don’t just brush me off like that,” Rayla all but shouts as she tilts her chin up to glare at her. 

Startled by her sudden movement, Claudia rears back, the back of her head hits the door behind her with force enough to slam it shut.  _Ouch!_  she flinches as she rubs at the sore spot. On the bright side, she didn’t drop the plate or glass.  

“Sorry!” Rayla reaches out, quick as an arrow though she grasps only air. Claudia would be more impressed if she wasn’t so stunned by her outburst. “Are you alright? Are your bandages holding up fine?” 

Claudia watches her with intent as she settles back down, still a little bewildered by the turn of events. Rayla’s quick to erupt, but quick to cool down, too. 

“Mn. Yeah. Don’t worry about it,” Claudia reassures her with a wobbly smile.  Her fingers ghost over the wound at her side—just to make sure—and she’s greeted with a familiar, throbbing pain. She feels like a startled deer right about now. She imagines it’s how she must look, too. Talk about grace under pressure. That… sure wasn’t one of her finer moments, for sure.  

Regret swirls in the tapering storm of Rayla’s eyes. “I didn’t mean to spook you. Sometimes, I... I act before I think. I’m trying to reign it in, but…” Rayla inhales deeply, lets it out in one haggard rush. “I don’t know. It’s hard, I guess, after years of training.”  

Her words hang thick in the air like a fog. 

Claudia gives a mild, affirmative noise. She gets where Rayla’s coming from, at least a little bit. Through a haze of memories, she can glimpse her own childhood: a thousand and one lessons under the tutelage of her father. Instinct has her defaulting to what she knows. For the longest time, what she knew was what he’d taught her.  

Rayla rakes her fingers through her ashen hair, then bites her lower lip, unsure about how to follow-up. “…In fights, there’s no time. Blink and someone’s already lopped off your head.” 

Claudia’s considering little hum morphs into a raspy chuckle at that last bit. She can’t help her one free hand darting up to her neck, can’t help the pulse quickening beneath her fingertips. She can feel a lump go down her throat as she swallows. She knows for a fact that Rayla’s twin blades are beneath her pillow, for easy access. She doesn’t want to admit to herself why she finds the fact noteworthy. 

Rayla’s fingers circle her right wrist like she’s nursing an old wound. Her lilac eyes are fixed somewhere far away. What a strange sight to behold. What a strange sight. If someone had told Claudia just weeks back, that this was who she’d be weathering a terrible storm with, she’d laugh herself hoarse.  

Right now, though, the sight only fills her with pain. Claudia thinks of all the times she’d catch Soren loitering about the castle grounds, stuffing himself with pastries. She’d tease him about it relentlessly… If only she had understood it sooner as a sign that something was troubling him. 

She forgets sometimes, how young they all are. She’d fret over the princes, back at the castle. They had her. And she had Soren. Who did Rayla have? She didn’t know. She barely knows anything about Rayla at all. The realization pricked her heart like a thorn.  

That had to change. It would. She’d make sure of it. 

Claudia steadies herself with a brisk, steadying breath before making up her mind on what to do next. She lays the plate down on the nightstand before gingerly sitting herself down, next to Rayla on the bed. Gently, she urges her to continue.  

“I kept secrets too,” Rayla began. “Back when I was travelling with Callum and Ezran.”   

 _Well, that’s how it is, sometimes,_  Claudia thinks with a commiserative frown. The world is built on secrets. Sometimes, the truth is an ugly, monstrous thing that needs to be kept on a short leash, on a need-to-know basis. A thousand and one lessons she had learnt under her father’s thumb. Those were his words, ringing and ringing in her head, like a bell. 

“They ate away at me, those secrets. But… I was scared. I was afraid of what would happen if they knew, and because of that, I kept mum. Because of that, I put us all in danger. I almost got us all killed. I know what that’s like…” 

It’s a heavy silence that follows. 

Claudia’s lips draw into a line, taut as a bowstring. A thousand and one things she learnt from her father. A thousand and one things she could have done differently. What would have happened if she had told Soren the truth about her secret mission? Would that have spurred him to confide in her, in turn?  

She remembers the sound of Soren’s bloodied sword hitting the ground… The look on her brother’s face… A devastation too visceral for words.  

Claudia blinks away the haze. All the words have left her. In the silence, there is only seething anger a quiet despair. Her hands are trembling in her lap. She doesn’t remember ever having clenched them into fists. No one has… no one has died, but she wants to mourn.  

“I know what that’s like,” Rayla says again, louder this time. Surer, too. “And I don’t want it to happen to us.”  

There’s a pang in Claudia’s heart when she looks over at Rayla.  

She had expected Rayla of all people, to lash out. She had expected more anger. Harsh words. A shouting match that would rival the rows between her mom and dad, once upon a time.  

Claudia doesn’t know what to do with a confession, nor her unvarnished sincerity. Her heart hurts. Her head does, too. She feels like a child, lost in the dark where nothing makes sense. 

Claudia thinks about that nebulous stretch of time everything ended and began anew, and fights the urge to put a hand over her thumping heart. She thinks of the night they tumbled from the mountain, and every night since. Rayla had chosen mercy then, and each time after.  

Rayla blows a raspberry as she looks up at the ceiling, and Claudia traces the marks curving down her cheek with eyes anew. Rayla isn’t like them. She isn’t like them, but not in the ways her history had her believing. Life isn’t a battlefield. Or at least it doesn’t have to be one. Rayla is the one who taught her that.  

“Ugh. All this heartfelt mush,” Rayla mutters, self-deprecating. “I’m starting to sound like Callum, aren’t I?” 

“No,” Claudia answers when she finds her footing and remembers how to breathe. The bubbly, hiccupping laughter that spills from her is gregarious, incredulously so. “You sound just like you.” 

“Not sure whether that’s good or bad…” Rayla says, gingerly scratching her cheek before finally turning to glance at Claudia. “What’s so funny? Wh-why are you looking at me all weird?”  

“I’m being supportive.” Claudia shrugs. The tears in her eyes are from laughter. "This is my supportive face.”  

“Well… take it back!” Rayla says, taken aback. “Bring back your normal face.” 

Claudia wishes it wasn’t so dark. She wants to marvel at her in the clear, crisp light of day. If Rayla’s indignation is any indication, she’s probably blushing again. And that’s always a sight to behold.  

“Woah, tough crowd. Okay, hold on,” Claudia says. Wiping the smile off her face is easier said than done, though. She tries to think of it as molding clay. It takes all the imagination she can muster. 

Rayla scoffs. “You’re so weird.” 

“You love it,” Claudia says through a spasm of laughter, cheeks squished between her palms.  

“Ugh,” Rayla says as she lightly pushes her away. “Just… Just go. You’ll give me nightmares if I ever manage to sleep through the noise.” 

If someone had told her weeks back, that this was how she’d be weathering a terrible storm, Claudia would have laughed herself hoarse.  

What a strange sight they must make.  

What a strange sight, indeed. 

* * *

Claudia’s mind had been a tent divided between past and present, but she  _had_  been listening for the most of it. Rayla had given her a lot of food for thought. It was practically a banquet. Rayla had given her an easy out as well, but Claudia was growing increasingly tired of easy outs.  

So maybe keeping secrets isn’t always the way to go. And maybe progress means unlearning things in order to push forward. There’s bedlam in Claudia’s head; hypotheticals dancing wildly about. One thought wins out though. She’d never know for sure if she didn’t try. She’d begun to see willful ignorance as the coward’s way out. 

“Hang on,” Claudia says when she’s managed to school her face into a neutral expression. "Sorry for being so dismissive, before. Y’know, you didn’t have to explain yourself, but I’m glad you did. I owe you an explanation, myself. But… okay, brace yourself. You’ll probably get mad.” 

“I’m already kind of mad,” Rayla quirks an eyebrow: her cue for Claudia to get on with it, probably.  

“Would you say you’re smad?” Claudia says, waggling her eyebrows in turn. 

“I’d say I’m getting smadder by the second,” Rayla warns her: short and curt.  

(Claudia doesn’t need to be told thrice.) 

“Alright. So… I spotted a travelling merchant downstairs earlier, and I’m running low on reagents, so y’know—” Claudia waves her right hand in a flourish—” I thought it’d be a good idea to restock. Look, I know you’re not exactly the biggest fan of dark magic—” 

Rayla interrupts with a scoff. “Can you blame me?”  

“No. But, yeah. Exactly. I didn’t want to complicate things and make you mad. Not when I could just zip in and stock up just like that,” Claudia says with a snap of her fingers. 

“Well, you’re right,” Rayla clucks her tongue. “I hate dark magic. But I wanna know these things, even if it makes me mad. You’re not… you’re not my prisoner. I’m not tying you up, or anything. I wouldn’t… have stopped you, either. But… look, it’s scary being in human territory, not knowing anything. You can run off any time, or betray me and—” 

“—I wouldn’t do that,” Claudia interrupts her. “I wouldn’t. You saved my life.” 

“That was then, and this is now.” Rayla crosses her arms over her chest, curls a little into herself on the bed. “Things change all the time. We both know that.”  

 _She doesn’t trust me,_  Claudia thinks. She bites the inside of her cheek, unprepared for how much the truth stings. She had thought they were good. She had thought they were more than good. It looks like she was mistaken.  

Learning all the ways around each other is a steep process in more ways than one. Two steps forward and one step back, that’s what it feels like sometimes, as daunting and uncertain as scaling the tallest peak in the world.  

Cardio… isn’t exactly Claudia’s strong suit, but… she’s nothing if not willing to try! She didn’t get to where she was by  _not_  accidentally scorching off her eyebrows at one point. Success, she knows firsthand, is built upon a mountain of failures. And inroads are only made possible by those brave enough to carve a path in uncharted territories.  

Besides, it’s not like she was striving for the impossible. Callum and Ezran had managed to befriend Rayla, hadn’t they? That had to count for  _something_. Maybe not proof of success exactly, but evidence of a forlorn hope, at the very least. 

Unbidden, a question trails like an afterthought: what would her father say, of those odds? 

She looks down at her hands. Her fingers hesitantly tracing the lines on her palm. Claudia wasn’t her father; wasn’t the High Mage of Katolis. She couldn’t speak for the kingdom, let alone all of humanity. All she can do right now, is speak for herself.  

Claudia doesn’t expect to feel so vulnerable when she does though, nor to feel so small.  

“You’re right. Circumstances change all the time, and people change, too. I’m not asking you to trust me. I know that’s something that must be earned. Just… give me a chance, Rayla,” Claudia says, gingerly laying a hand over Rayla’s wrist. “One day, I promise, you won’t have to worry that I’ll betray you, or anything like that.”  

“Grand words, coming from a dark mage.” The lilac eyes regarding Claudia are sharp and clear as her words. The full brunt of that stare… It makes her feel like she’s being cut down to the quick.  

Claudia meets it heads-on, though she does not dare blink. Rayla doesn’t jerk her hand away. That has to count for  _something,_  right? 

“Fine, then,” Rayla continues after a heavy beat of silence. It sounds almost like a challenge.  _Prove_   _it:_  the words go unspoken.  

“But come back up with a petrified elf hand, or some such nonsense and I’m outta here, myself.” 

“How about petrified newt tails?” Claudia can’t help the little quip. Humor’s a bad reflex sometimes, but she had to ease the mounting tension somehow. She knows she’s pushing her luck. She doesn’t know she’s already crossed the line. Rayla’s answering deadpanned stare is so stone cold, Claudia feels a chill run down her spine. “Alright, alright. I take it back,” Claudia says, but by then it’s already too late. She’d poked the sleeping dragon one too many times, and now must face its wrath. “Bad joke.” 

“Dark magic’s no joke, Claudia,” Rayla seethes. “If I had my way, I’d toss your bag into a fire.” Her eyes narrow into slits. There’s anger in that glare, a fury sharp and bright, like the glint of clashing swords.  

The apology dies on Claudia’s tongue.  _That’s enough damage for now,_  Claudia thinks as she slinks off to fetch the plates from the bedside table. Rayla means it. All of it. She hardly ever calls Claudia by name unless she wants to make a point.  

Claudia has this terrifying feeling that if they’d met under different circumstances, maybe she’d be the one at risk of being tossed into a fire.   

* * *

It didn’t need to be said, but sometimes Claudia’s pretty bad at reading the situation. It didn’t need to be said, but sometimes, Claudia isn’t the best at beating strategic retreats, either. She lingers at the door, tugged back by a niggling thought.  

A soldier has a sword and shield. A mage’s greatest weapon lies not in the strength of their magic, but of their mind. Glib words are all well and good, but what good would it do her now, when she’d already run through the gamut of possibilities. Creative solutions… What exactly do they mean? 

Claudia clucks her tongue, rummages in her bag, and fishes out two small, spare corks. 

“Rayla, catch,” Claudia says as she tosses them over. Rayla catches them from out the air with all the grace and finesse of a crane spearing fish. Which  _… Wow. Okay. Don’t clap, Claudia,_ she thinks, impressed. 

“I’ll see what I can do about the noise while I’m down there, but hey! Maybe these’ll help in the meantime,” Claudia says as she points helpfully to her ears.  

“Thanks… I think,” Rayla says in turn as she holds one cork up to her eye for inspection.  

“Yeah? No worries.” Carefully, she studies the emotions playing across Rayla’s face. One step forward, and she can smooth back that stubborn, silver cowlick. She’s more interested though, in easing away that troubled frown. 

Claudia lingers for as long as she can before turning away. Hands on the cold wood, she sighs into the dark. Some distances aren’t hers to cross. 

“Claudia, wait.” Claudia can’t help that little trill in her heart as she turns back around. “I know you’re gonna be among your fellow human… fellas, but remember to keep your guard up, still. If you need me to come down with you, I’ll—” 

“—It’s alright, Rayla. Thanks for the offer and the concern,” Claudia says with a smile and a reassuring little wink. “Get some rest. I can handle myself for tonight.”  

Elven constitutions were enviable, but she’d done too much for her already. The least Claudia could do was let Rayla rest up and… not unnecessarily force her to confront a bunch of human activities she outright detested.  

Good intentions or not, Rayla still doesn’t look entirely convinced. “I’ll leave an ear uncorked until you’re back. Just… shout, alright? If anything happens.” 

 _She’s too soft for her own good, isn’t she?_  Claudia thinks. She tries not to look too pleased by her concern.  

“Y’know, you have a pretty soft heart for a bloodthirsty elf.” Light spills into the darkness when she opens the door. 

“Says the one with a soft head.” Rayla’s eyes catch the light and glow, almost luminescent. The smirk on her face is wry, but not unkind.  

They exchange a smile; their stand-in for goodbyes.  

And then there are no more words. 

Push and pull. The moon and the sea are locked in a perpetual rhythm of motion.  

It is a dance no one else is privy to. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope y'all enjoyed this breather chapter before we delve in. How's the story so far? 
> 
> I spent April dying a thousand times playing Sekiro. Spoilers: you fight a giant monkey and it farts in your face, throws poop at you and belly flops from the heavens doing the worm.


End file.
